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Baby, it's cold outside: More freezing temps and snow on the way for Ann Arbor

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Ann Arbor residents dealt with temperatures in the teens and even lower wind chills on Wednesday. Things aren't going to get any easier with more cold and snowy weather on the way.
(Patrick Record | The Ann Arbor News)

Thursday is expected be dry and cold, but the Ann Arbor area could see significant snowfall Friday evening into Saturday.

“Right now we’re looking at probably somewhere in the 3-inch range,” National Weather Service meteorologist Rachel Kulik said.

“The models are still kind of different so we’re still trying to figure out which one is correct.”

Kulik said that a storm system is making its way across the country and could deposit a large amount of snow across the Midwest. Meteorologists begin tracking systems while they are still over the Pacific Ocean, but are able to make more concrete predictions on their path once they cross the Rocky Mountains.

The system that is heading for Michigan was expected to bring even more precipitation, but some changes in its trajectory have caused the weather service to change its forecast.

“Over the last day it’s drifted more south so we’ve been cutting back the totals a bit,” Kulik said. “We still have a couple more runs before we need to make a decision.”

Before the storm arrives, Ann Arborites will need deal with some extremely cold weather. Kulik said that the true temperature on Thursday will remain in the teens, but the wind chill is likely to hover around zero degrees Fahrenheit for most of the day.

“It’s going to be pretty calm, but the wind chills are going to be right around zero for most of the day,” she said. “That’s because we have cold air coming down from the arctic. It’s not going to be really windy but there is cold air funneling in throughout the day.”

Kulik said that the temperatures for this week are lower than average and that we’ve been below normal temperatures for a couple of weeks now. She's also not projecting much relief on the horizon.

“While the storm system goes through it won’t be quite as cold, but then we’ll get more cold air coming in behind,” Kulik said.